Memo to Cornyn: Don’t diss the tea party

Texas Sen. John Cornyn has had a charmed tenure as chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. As I’ve previously written, when he assumed the NRSC leadership after the disastrous (for Republicans) 2008 elections, it looked like a job with all the potential of being captain of the Titanic — after it hit the iceberg.

But the arrogant overreach of the Democratic supermajority in Congress raised the GOP’s sinking prospects. Particularly after Scott Brown’s shocking upset of Martha Coakley in true-blue Massachusetts, the potential for large Republican gains in the Senate began to rise.

Cornyn also looked like an astute political leader, having pumped $500,000 into Massachusetts to support a campaign that plenty of smart people said was a lost cause.

By July, Cornyn was saying it would take two election cycles for Republicans to net the 10 seats needed to regain the majority. By early August, polls showed Republicans with a solid chance of achieving a majority in one cycle.

Was that the peak for Senate Republicans and Cornyn for 2010?

Last month, incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski lost a bitter and close Alaska GOP primary battle against tea party favorite Joe Miller. In the protracted vote count that eventually gave Miller the victory, the NRSC initially deployed a lawyer to assist Murkowski.

That show of favoritism heightened conservative criticism of Cornyn that began last spring in Florida. In the Sunshine State, Cornyn endorsed Gov. Charlie Crist in a contested primary with former Florida House Speaker and tea party favorite Marc Rubio. Above and beyond the endorsement, Cornyn gave Crist $10,000 from the NRSC and another $10,000 from his own leadership PAC.

As underdog Rubio surged past Crist in the polls in May, Crist abandoned the party. He”s now running as an independent against Rubio in November.

Then tea party favorite Christine O’Donnell upset establishment candidate Mike Castle in Delaware this week. The victory by O’Donnell (who has a history of financial problems and bizarre statements) took Delaware out of the probable win list and into the unlikely category for the GOP.

That was bad enough — every potential victory counts in trying to score a net gain of ten seats But then an anonymous NRSC staffer started blabbing that O’Donnell would receive no support because she was “unelectable.” That’s no way to treat a candidate who represents a movement that has reinvigorated your party’s prospects — even if she is unelectable.

The anti-incumbent, anti-establishment wave represented by the tea party isn’t only directed at Democrats — just ask Murkowski and Castle. Cornyn needs to be sure that he and the committee he leads are riding that wave, not fighting against it.